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Recently I brought myself a copy of Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3, when I brought the game I was a bit sceptical,after all it is the third game in a series and games like this are normally tedious after a sequel,but I gave it a chance and truly enjoyed it!!

The game is the third in the series, it is a skateboarding game under the name of Tony Hawk one of the most legendary skaters there has ever been(Until about three years ago I used to skate so I know a fair bit about skating etc).

In the game you can choose between 12 pro skaters:Steve Caballero,Kareem Campbell,Rune Glifburg,Eric Koston,Bucky Lasek,Bob Margera,Rodney Mullen,Chad Muska,Andrew Reynolds,Geoff Rowley,Elissa Steamer and Jamie Thomas. All of the skaters have different abilities ands special tricks at the start of the game, however you can change everything about them including clothes and stat points. When you complete all the tasks with one of the characters new features become available in the game, for example you can get secret characters such as Darth Mule and Wolverine. When you complete the three competitions with anyone character you get a secret video of the character which lasts a thew minutes.

Making a comeback in this game is the create a skater mode. In this you can make any kind of skater you want,you could give it any name,make it any sex or make it look exactly how you want. Once you have created your beast, you can save it to the memory card and play it in all the levels!

The levels in the game are massive living and breathing, there are loads of people wondering around going about there daily business. The attention to detail in the levels is truly amazing and everything looks very realistic.Three of the levels in the game are competitions,in these levels you do not do tasks but instead you have three 1minute run to do loads of fancy tricks in,the judges then give you a score and the best 2 of your tree runs count towards your final score.

Dotted around the levels in various places there are stat points, by collecting these you can put the stats up on your skater, for example you can make it so the skater can ollie(jump) higher or make them grind longer.There are 5 of these stat points in each level and they are essential if you want to complete the game.

A great feature of this game is the improved version of the skatepark editor. In this feature you can make skate parks how you want. The levels that you make are very basic and not as realistic as the actual game levels,however they are still great fun. You can do what you want with what you want, your only limitation is the space that you get and the amount of space the objects take up!!!

The idea of the game is to complete tasks over all of the levels. On each of the 9 levels there are 10 tasks. The tasks vary from level to level although all the levels have some of the same tasks, such as find the secret tape and score 20,00 or something similar. The tasks get more and more difficult the further into the game you get.

The graphics in this game are great. They are the best graphics in a skating game yet. The skaters are animated perfectly and all the other people walking around in the game are just as detailed. The boards look very realistic and the ramps and surroundings look even more so.

The sound on Tony Hawks 3 is simply amazing, there is a killer soundtrack featuring songs from Madcapsle Markets,Motorhead and AFI. However if you not into the soundtracks style of music why not turn the music volume right down and leave the SFX on, then you can either listen to the great sound affects or put some music on of your own to go with the SFX.

The casing that the game comes in is the typical Gamecube one. It is like a DVD case and has a little slot for you to keep a memory card in. The casing has all the typical pictures and information on it,nothing special.

The instructions that you receive with the game are OK. They tell you everything that you need to know, however they are quite poor in some places and could have been a lot more detailed. But due to the easy nature of the game you do not really need to read the instructions any way.

The game has a very long lifeline. However saying that it only has a long lifeline if you want to unlock everything. I have had the game for about six weeks and I have not even half completed it. The game is aslong as you want it to be. If you are a stubborn git and don’t want to stop playing the game until you have milked it of everything you have got it will last you ages, but if not it could only last a week

There are lots of skating games out there so what makes Tony Hawks 3 so special?. Well the graphics are absolutely brilliantly, the levels are big and living and the attention to detail is stunning.Not to mention the killer sound track+all the amazing features such as the create a skater mode and the park editor. All in all Tony hawks 3 is just another skating game but it has taken the skating games just one step further into realism.

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